TOPP: Promoter Gary Topp Brought Us the World, graphic biography/memoir of 1970s coolness

TOPP: Promoter Gary Topp Brought Us the World
DAVID COLLIER
Conundrum Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$20.00 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: As with all of Collier's work, his latest graphic novel is a combination of memoir and biography. This time, he explores his involvement in the cultural landscape of Toronto in the 1970s and 80s, specifically focusing on the life of Gary Topp, a concert promoter and founder of the pioneering Canadian repertory cinema.

Topp emerged from an immigrant background, abandoned the family textile business, and became an influential figure in the lives of an entire community. He was also Collier's first boss and mentor. Though outspoken and opinionated, Gary Topp inspired love and devotion, not only in those who worked for him, but also in the acts he booked—including the Ramones, The Police, and the Dixie Chicks.

This graphic novel looks at a rapidly disappearing past and uses Topp's ability to see beyond the mainstream for a look at where our culture is heading.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I feel old. Everything in this graphic novel took place, not just in my lifetime, but during my adulthood.

And it's fading history! This is the dim, distant past to the crowd most likely to buy a graphic novel. I'm gonna go shout at some clouds.

Anyway. I'm not from Toronto, but I feel a lot more aware of the reach of punk, and of weird 70s films, and the pervasive, why didn't I see it then, dissatisfaction of young men with the world. The thing about dissatisfaction is, it can be manipulated and redirected by those as observant and savvy as Topp was; often enough for wicked, nasty purposes. Neatly explaining today.

Each panel is an episode in the ongoing story, so it can be browsed without fear of losing the plot threads. Ain't none. I must say I'm lukewarm at best on the art...very appropriate to the period and milieu, though.

I got a few more samples; I don't think you're in any doubt about your feelings for the art by now, so I'll stop here.

Your too-cool-for-school nibling might enjoy seeing how it was done; any oldster punk-rock scenesters might feel nostalgic and dewy-eyed; comic book fans might like a graphic memoir about the edges of fame. It was a decent read.

WITCHCRAFT: A Graphic History, Stories of wise women, healers and magic, beautiful book to gift the young Wiccan on your list

WITCHCRAFT: A Graphic History, Stories of wise women, healers and magic
LINDSAY SQUIRE (illus. Lisa Salsi)
Leaping Hare Press
$19.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Discover the enchanting character and story of Biddy Early, the first known witch in herstory as she guides us on a magickal journey.

'Every witch uses her magic differently. I use mine to heal people, while others ...' 'What do the others do!? Are there many different types of witches!?'
'Oh yes! Many ...'

Join Lindsay, a young and curious 19th-century lady, as she meets Biddy Early, the famous 'wise woman of County Clare', and learns all about the magickal arts—from which plants can be used to make healing poultices and potions, to how people dealt with the social and political stigma of practicing witchcraft.

Biddy Early, who lived from 1798–1874 in Ireland, was by no means the first-ever witch, but she was the first to appear on the historical record. Before her, fears and superstitions surrounding practitioners of 'the nameless art' were too strong. It is said that Biddy took an apprenticeship with the 'good folk', sidhe or faeries, when she was very young, and it was from them that she learned her skill as a healer.

Never one to accept monetary payment for the help she offered, Biddy would often swap home-brewed alcohol for her services, which in turn, made her ramshackle cottage in Feakle a hub for the local community. When her little corner of the county drew the attention of the Catholic Church and the local authorities, things became very difficult for this unusual woman…

Encompassing self-empowerment, feminism, dealing with stigma, and eco-spirituality, as well as plant magic, traditions, and green wisdom, Witchcraft: A Graphic History is a fresh take on an endlessly fascinating subject.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I cannot imagine anyone reading one of my reviews really needs telling that magic is a way of understanding the world. It is appealing to younger folk because the evidence all around them shows up the manifest, and manifold, failures of their elders' way of comprehending the world.

The appeal of witchcraft to young women is, in my view, down to its offer of a power unshared by the majority (that works overtime to lock them out of possessing and using more conventional forms of power). As the parlous state of affairs in the modern world needs new and different viewpoints and uniquely nature-centered ideas to escape the dual traps of materialism and capitalism, this book suggests itself as a wonderful corrective.

I'm quite enamoured of the art. YMMV on that score, but I hope anyone reading this is already on board with the truth that seeing one's self and one's identity in the mirror of the past is deeply healing and invaluably enriching and validating.

As a #Booksgiving gift, I hope you'll agree that this is a worthy goal. As an object to possess, a book to put on the coffee table, this is a statement of your belief in, and faith offered to, a way of understanding the world through a woman's eyes. Positive gynergy emanates from this book in a glorious nimbus.

Trade some treasure and some time for this peace-spreading book.

TOLKIEN: Lighting Up The Darkness, or me recommending a comic book to you. No, really!

TOLKIEN: Lighting Up The Darkness
WILLY DURAFFOURG (illus. Giancarlo Caracuzzo)
Ablaze Publishing
$16.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: JRR Tolkien was not always the old Oxford professor, pipe in the mouth, refining his extraordinary work.

In 1915, at age 23, he left for the front with his high school friends, whom he loved like brothers. They take part in the Battle of the Somme which will kill 450,000 people. The horror of war will brand his relationship to friendship, love and creation.

This graphic novel explores the youth of the author of The Lord of the Rings, and his traumatic experience of the battlefields of the First World War, which will forge the imagination of his literary work.

For fans of The Hobbit & Lord of The Rings looking to learn more about the genius behind their favorite epics.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Okay. This is how you know for certain that we are in the End Times.

I am recommending to you, dear blog reader, a comic book. A format I avoid because I do not "get" it. One that is, to boot, about the author of The Lord of the Rings. A book series that I famously dislike with the utmost vigor.

Have the GQP released some personality-altering chemical into the atmosphere? It feels like that is not out of the realm of possibility, given how many of my shibboleths I am smashing by recommending this read to you. The issues I have with graphic works always comes down to, what am I supposed to do, read its words or look at its art? I am not wired to do both...I read fast, so am the right audience for subtitled film and TV, and less so for sequential story-telling which is, of necessity, light on words.

Then we come to Tolkien. Not my jam, as the middle-aged whippersnappers say. I never caught the Middle-Earth bug, despite my love for The Hobbit in childhood. I seem to have acquired sterile immunity to Tolkien from that story-inoculation. No idea why, really. It should have been so totally my thing, only it wasn't.

What led me to get this DRC was the fact that, despite my dislike of his stories and his conservative, anti-progressive politics, I think I need to know about the man that changed the entire publishing industry, and the popular culture I grew up in, with the stories that were inspired by his experiences in the Great War. The fact that this is a translation from the French, and is illustrated by an Italian master of sequential storytelling art, made the prospect of reading the story much more attractive to me.

The artwork speaks for itself in the samples from the publisher posted below. It is, to my art-savvy eye, lovely stuff. It is well-chosen to make its storytelling points succinctly, and very aesthetically pleasing.

I think the light shined on the origin of the world-beating work done by Tolkien makes this graphic treatment of his life all the more interesting. The plight of a WWI soldier is, as always, interesting to me. That it is the story a soldier who went on to use the horrors of his time at war to write effectively of the cost of battles on the unprepared and unsuited people who always have and always will predominate among the combatants...priceless.

Kudos to the writers and to the publisher for seeing that this take on the life of JRR Tolkien is important, illuminating, and quite beautiful.